Google celebrates season of giving with $15 Million in grants

Google team said it is joining in to help spread the holiday cheer by giving more than $15 million in grants to organizations using technology to address some of the world’s biggest problems.

From San Francisco to Western Africa, these organizations are making a direct impact on people around the world, every day. Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director, Google.org.

Coinciding with the season of giving, Google in its official blog posting said that there are a lot of ways to give either by donating or by volunteering, besides surprising a stranger with a random act of gift and kindness.

One of its grants will go to Feeding America. Each year, billions of pounds of surplus food are sent to landfills, while 49 million Americans (including one in five children) go hungry. The grant will help support their newest food rescue initiative called the Online Marketplace, a program that connects local retail and foodservice businesses who have excess food to those in need.

Feeding America serves 3.3 billion meals annually and the Online Marketplace is projected to lead to the recovery of an additional 740 million meals, significantly reducing food waste while giving more families access to food.

Two of other grantees are working on the front lines to help ensure lives aren’t lost to preventable diseases. Nexleaf Analytics works to get life-saving vaccines to children in India and Mozambique by preserving these vaccines before they spoil by installing low-cost refrigerator sensors in clinics.

“No More Malaria” is fighting to save lives by better understanding the spread of malaria using newly available mobile data to map malaria cases and how they are being treated.

“These are only part of our annual philanthropic efforts. Over the course of the year, we strive to make the world a little bit better through our technology and giving programs, including more than $100 million in grants, $1 billion in technology resources, and 80,000+ volunteer hours donated to causes around the world,” said Jacqueline Fuller, Director of Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google Inc.

“We’re glad to do our part spreading some love this holiday season, and look forward to seeing more world-changing work in 2015,” she said.